Serbia’s Foreign-Exchange Reserves Rise After Eurobond Sale

Serbia’s foreign-exchange reserves rose 330 million euros ($420 million) in October, after the Balkan country sold a $1 billion Eurobond.

Reserves increased to 10.16 billion euros in October from 9.83 billion euros a month earlier, their lowest in 22 months, Narodna Banka Srbije, the country’s central bank said in an e- mailed statement today. Loans and donations brought in further 31.2 million euros.

Outflows included 209.7 million euros that banks withdrew from their mandatory reserve accounts, while the state spent 117.7 million euros to repay foreign creditors.

Net reserves, excluding the money commercial lenders keep with the central bank and funds from the International Monetary Fund, increased to 6.02 billion euros from 5.48 billion euros at the end of September, the central bank said.

Interbank foreign-currency trading soared almost 54 percent to 1.88 billion euros, bringing the ten-month volume to 14.5 billion euros, the bank said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net